Until recently I was developing remotely in that I was based on our Glasgow site with our Head Office in Glasgow.

I am now spending the majority of my time in Oxford and, in doing so, have rewritten quite a lot of my reports as it is obvious that these do not quite hit the mark as far as meeting the users “actual” needs.

The original reports were written to the users specification but only provided part of the solution that QlikView could provide. For example, we had a sales report which the user then dumped into Excel to create graphs from which they then e-mailed to various managers. This report now includes these graphs with the user clicking a button which e-mails them to the managers.

This says to me that face to face interacton is critical in “at least” the specification stage of the development. As Brian says, this coule be “followed up by a period of offsite development with regular checkpoints”.

I’m inclined to agree with you that that you really do need an element of face-to-face interaction to build the most appropriate application for the client. It is impossible to see a serious frown, or a knowing smile via WebEx or conference call, and something like that could potentially change the whole dynamic of a development given the right circumstances.

Having said that, I have definitely had experiences where meeting with the client initially to spec out requirements has been followed up by a period of offsite development with regular checkpoints. I feel that scenario can be quite effective too, but that is probably more the case in situations where the client has very little QlikView knowledge. The more knowledge they have, the more input (and less guidance from the consultant) they generally want into the look and feel of the application.

I suppose that translates to me sitting on the fence slightly. Despite that, there is no replacement for being in the room when the “lightbulb” moment happens. So I would say whilst it’s great to be able to do remote work in the midst of a development, it’s really important to be onsite for the start and the end, to ensure that the “humanity” is not completely erased from the process.

Great post, completely agree.

In my practice I have a few clients who before were with QlikView partners who only do remote development. While the solutions that these partners built were technically correct, all of them missed the fine nuance between what a client asks for and what they really want (or need). The ‘informal requirements’ so to say.

In my opinion the best (possibly only) way to gather these informal/unwritten requirements is to be on-site. When working remotely, all contacts with the client have a formal business purpose. You only get a single side of the story, the ‘official’ version. I find however, that it is in the small, informal ‘off the record’ chats with people that you get a much better view of the true wants, needs and motivation.

People often underestimate (or ignore) the impact that an organization’s culture and, unfortunately, politics can have on the success of your (QlikView) project. Simply being on site and speaking face to face with the stakeholders can go a long way in mitigating these risks.

Or, as Woody Allen put it: “90% of success is just showing up.”

Cheers,

Barry
http://www.qlikfix.com